You had me at Bobbi Kotula. That woman is incredible. I might have to see this sometime, and I might even talk about it later, producers be damned.

Agree. I saw it in previews and it was definitely still in development. The actors are good, giving and game and yeah, Bobbi Kotula. Wow.

As someone who knows Stu, I can understand the focus on his boobs. They're quite... substantial.

You could use your precious time and space reviewing the many plays that want to be reviewed. I can name a least a dozen happening right now. Granted, they didn't have the audacity to ask for a million dollars to make them. And weren't in the Stranger Banner ads for the last two weeks, but should be covered none the less.

Good for Kiley. If Intiman soaks up all the newsprint (and screen pixles) they can to promote their shows, they can also risk what every single theater in town--large, small, and in between--risks: the chance of a bad review. And this review reads as balanced, reasonable, and mostly positive. First the ask for $250,000 per show, then they ask for more, then they tell the NYT they're the only good summer talent in town but then they are too cowardly to bring in reviewers?

Stu has a great story. He deserves a big national splash of a show to tell it. But maybe Intiman is too cynical and self serving to deserve to be the ones to do the telling.

While I agree that Intiman's advertising tactics are questionable for an "in-process" piece of theater, I still find this a little frustrating. Just because you found a loophole (or just because Intiman's actions aren't necessarily above table), doesn't mean you can go against simple professional courtesy and review a show that doesn't want to be reviewed. If it's still in its development phase, a negative review can kick it to the curb-- what if that poor second act closer is currently being fixed behind the scenes, but the night you saw it they hadn't been able to get the new pages out?

I've often been one to fight that theater critics are "advocates" for the art form. I fight for the form. I enjoy the form. But this is advocacy in the wrong: a black and white, "the audience HAS to know" mind set isn't always right.

I'm a bit disappointed by this, because I like your writing. I hope this sort of thing isn't a new habit.

Your right, as a production or performer, to immunity from criticism ends the moment you charge people admission to see your show.

Looks like a risky move that paid off, there's always more attention in "controversy"

As someone who considers themselves to be a New Play Professional, and someone far from Seattle, I'm appalled by your lack of respect for the playwright's process. Many different organizations across the country have taken the same process the Intiman has taken with this new play and charged far higher prices. Performances at the O'Neill Center change every day, with rewrites being an exciting part of production. The Humana Fest even allows its critics to come only for the last weekend of productions, and have you ever seen a ticket price for that?! Steppenwolf opens its First Look series this week- and runs in the same spirit.

I think its terribly disappointing to see someone club a very promising show from very important young artists, when really maybe a simple "thank you" should have been given to the Intiman for taking such an exciting journey. In Chicago, if a company presents this kind of offering, like Russell and the Intiman are, we jump for joy.

I don't know these artists personally, but have the most respect for them and what they are bringing to Seattle's community. And I truly have none for you. I think an apology is in due.

As someone who considers themselves to be a New Play Professional, and someone far from Seattle, I'm appalled by your lack of respect for the playwright's process. Many different organizations across the country have taken the same process the Intiman has taken with this new play and charged far higher prices. Performances at the O'Neill Center change every day, with rewrites being an exciting part of production. The Humana Fest even allows its critics to come only for the last weekend of productions, and have you ever seen a ticket price for that?! Steppenwolf opens its First Look series this week- and runs in the same spirit.

I think its terribly disappointing to see someone club a very promising show from very important young artists, when really maybe a simple "thank you" should have been given to the Intiman for taking such an exciting journey. In Chicago, if a company presents this kind of offering, like Russell and the Intiman are, we jump for joy.

I don't know these artists personally, but have the most respect for them and what they are bringing to Seattle's community. And I truly have none for you. I think an apology is in due.

As someone who's had a new, developing work written about in less-than-flattering terms by Kiley, I have to say that I see no value in sheltering such work from critics. I doubt that anyone who would let any review, [even/especially] one from The Stranger, influence his or her willingness to pay the price that our work requires of the audience member in order to exist is not likely to have come to the show in the first place. If nothing else, the review allowed me to get feedback from an audience member who isn't already my friend; as with any and all other feedback I received on the piece, I have used or will use whatever criticisms struck me as both valid and actionable. Those criticisms that lack in one category or the other, by whatever metric I'm using, I simply accept as one person's view of a work that's not for everyone.

I think the dialogue between artists and critics is ill-served if we keep them away from developing work. Worse yet, I think it insults the audience to suggest that a show is worthy of their money while saying, on the other hand, that it's not yet up to the standards of being seen and publicly discussed by an ostensibly "trained" eye (however dubious and arbitrary that distinction really is).

And @13, those "far higher prices" may fly in your market, but they're anathema around here. The last thing we Seattleites want is for theater to become (or remain, given how the industry's been run for a number of years now) another trifling amusement or self-congratulatory pageant of values for the bourgeoisie.

We should jump for joy when new work of this kind comes up. We should also welcome all that comes with it, including the people who just don't get it, or don't think it works.

@12 Intiman isn't a new play festival, so your comparisons don't really hold water. Even if it were, you're being ridiculous. This review was entirely fair and very up front about the fact that it's a work in process. Perhaps more so than the one in the Seattle Times, which has a much wider circulation beyond the arts community, (and is, by the way, quoted on Intiman's homepage.) Where's your angry comment on that one?

I have much more respect and patience for somebody like Brendan than for thin-skinned and pretentious "New Play Professionals" who think the artist's process is so precious and fragile that it must be protected from any inkling of a negative opinion. Having worked in the arts for years I'll gladly listen to him over you any day.

@12 and @13 - Kiley is the absolute worst, like five pounds of nepotistic shit in a two-pound pay-for-play bag.

However, he is absolutely in the right here, and all the apologists for the Intiman are crazier and more morally corroded and deluded than he is.

He makes my gorge rise, but you elitist absurdists who want people to pay to see a rehearsal advertised as a finished production push that bile right back inside of me.

It's not healthy for me. You are hurting my body, and I would like you to stop.

This is like when two football teams you hate play one another in the playoffs. You wish they could both lose. But someone has to win, and in this case it's the Loathsome Kiley.

Even a glad-handing, payola-swilling turd-based lifeform is right sometimes.

Kiley 1 Weirdo Foreign Theatre Dude 0

@12/13:

I agree with @15 that the Intiman isn't a new play festival, rendering your comparisons void. At the O'Neill, the attraction is that they present in-process work. And you're wrong about Humana--they allow reviews to come more than at the last weekend. It's just that they offer special deals and press access that last weekend. Reviewers can come the earlier "big" weekend, and local reviewers come throughout the whole festival.

When Intiman works hard to fill papers with ads and preview articles and glowing fluff pieces, they in no way anywhere describe Stu as a workshop and in-process. They want it all ways. If tiny Cap Hill dingy theatres run by 22 year olds have the guts to invite Kiley to raw, untested, under rehearsed new works that they've invested all their spare time and ego into, then so can the Intiman.

This was a cynical, greedy attempt by Intiman to keep all the write ups positive and prevent any criticism. An effort that was pointless it looks like.

Can we all just take a moment to recognize that a major theater company produced a play with a transgender protagonist? A play that isn't another tired vanity rendition of Hedwig and the Angry Inch? Trans folk get almost no media representation at all. Why is this entire comments conversation about Brendan's right to review a play? Why is almost all of Brendan's review about his right to review a play? I honestly don't give a fuck about this whole comedy of manners! The fact is good or bad people should be talking about this play. This is a play that deserves to be talked about.

http://www.intiman.org/everyone-is-right…